The Fallowing – The Fifth, Part XIII

He didn’t answer at first, then “When would have been a good time to tell you I was what you hated most? Before or after we began making love?”

“How about anytime?”

“How was I to tell you? You didn’t ask until it was too late. By then I had fallen in love with you.”

“Don’t do that.”

“But I did and I am and it hurts as much as I thought it would when you found out.”

“So you did expect me to find out?” I looked forward to that writhing Christ tacked on his cross.

“It haunted me every day that you would.” His voice was thin, choked. “Maybe it’s better that you know now.”

“Of course it’s better,” I snarled.

A pause.

“Is it?” he asked, sincerely.

I swallowed hard. “No, it’s not.”

“Would you rather not remember me?”

It seemed that the blood drained from my body. “You could do that, couldn’t you? Like you reversed the injury to my body, after you killed Amnon. With that damned watch I made you keep.”

“I’ve been practicing.”

I peered down at my hands, and one of those stupid stray thought you get at times like this popped into my head. Where am I going to get new gloves? It was a thought from small towns and empty wilderness, not a thought for a sprawling city. “I’m going to ask now. And I want an answer this time.”

He waited.

“What are you?”

He took in a breath as if he would tell it all in a single lungful. Then he began.